Explication donnee est un pas en arrifcre et propre enlever toute valeur a la premiere declaration du program arrachee au gouvernement allemand. Vous mentionnez soidisant volonte exprimee deja par Pologne, Littuanie, Curlande! Vous savez tr6s bien qu'il n'est question depression de volonte des groupes bourgeois, riches proprietaires de territoire ossireux, mais pas question de peuples. (?)1

Fond 2, op. 1, d. 23547 - autograph.

Translation

This explanation is a step backwards and may deprive the first declared program, which the German Government managed to extract from the German Government, of any value. You mention the already expressed demand of Poland, Lithuania, Courland! You know very well that there it was nothing else but the demand of the bourgeois groups, of the big owners of the occupied territory, but in no case of the people.

1It is assumed that this document dates from the time of the Brest-Litovsk negotiations, before the middle of December 1917. In the address of the People's Commissariat to the peoples and governments of the Allied countries of December 17 (30) it is reported that the German government agrees to withdraw the occupation troops and to let the peoples, including Poland, Lithuania, Courland, decide their own fate (see: Documents of the Foreign Policy of the USSR. Vol. 1, M., 1957, p. 68).